Scratching The Itch
by Cap'n Pirate Monkey
Summary: Exploring the complex relationship between Balthier and Fran. Rated M for suggestive stuff.


It feels sometimes as if it has always been this way. It hasn't, of course, although they lack the will and perhaps the need to keep track of the time that has passed. Time, in any case, lacks definition when the sky is rushing past, becoming a cerulean blur as you nosedive toward earth. The time they spend together blurs in the same way.

Sometimes it is less seamless. They have company now. The privacy of the _Strahl_ is a rare luxury, even moreso since it was docked for repairs, shimmering above the hard-baked rock of Dalmasca. They have never been publicly affectionate; it does not suit them, and in any case, their present company is hardly one in which a stolen kiss would be a thrill. They have gone a week without the airship.

Their arrangement (because to think of it as a relationship affords a gravity which he, in his youth and arrogance, and she being what she is, cannot stomach just yet) seemed the most natural progression in the world. He, disillusioned and full of ambition, stole a ship ("Commandeered" he would often correct, eyebrows raised, eyes alive with mischief) and made off into the skies, seeking a freedom he had previously felt denied. She had left her own home for much the same reason and felt empathy, the first time she had felt anything significant toward a Hume. It was natural that they should find each other.

He would often find reason to tease her, an innocent sort of insolence to which she had slowly become accustomed (although admittedly did not always enjoy) His humour, to her, seemed crass and did not become his refined vocabulary and elegant mode of speech. He called it fun. She called it foolish and a waste of good air. She would turn her back on him and stalk away into the depths of the ship, conceal herself in her bunkroom. Sometimes, he would follow her.

He lusted after her, and this much was always evident. She could smell it on him, see it in his eyes, taste it in his words. It was never an issue between them. He was generally a gentleman, and she would tolerate his occasional playful advances, if not reciprocate them. The few times he had crossed the line she had put him back in his place with her sharp tongue and, only once, with the heel of her stiletto.

She had never been sentimental, and so the exact moment that things changed between them eluded her, although he remembered it clearly. It was subtle, as Viera often are. A cold night, suspended above a hidden-away part of the Westersands, edging toward Mosphoran, far enough from their pursuers to be comfortable, although they were not. The night was a bleak starless affair, the sky thick with bruise-coloured clouds and a light mist of rain. Neither of them had the gall to sleep, what with their adversaries close behind, and in any case, sleep would have been impossible with the roar of the chase still buzzing loud in their ears, the taste of escape still so tangible. They talked in his bunk room for a while, his window looking out onto the grey desert below. The sand shimmered gently in the ice-white glare of the moon.

She left her armour in her own bunk room, and he thought she looked strangely vulnerable with her caramel skin exposed like that. He fiddled absently with his cuffs while she spoke of engines and the sky, a faint oil stain smeared beneath her eye, the smell of metal still heavy about her hands. He cracked some small joke at her expense and she was quick to reprimand him, but this time her expression was soft and knowing, and his eyes were so alive with merry mischief that there could be no real hard feelings. Her lips tilted in a small, genuine smile, and that was all it took. Then he knew.

They don't talk much about what passed between them then, nor what passes between them now. Initially, their 'arrangement' was based upon mutual desire, the kind of urgency that Viera consider themselves above and beyond, and that refined sky-pirates consider a dangerous weakness. She reciprocated his lust with a ferocity that frightened him and aroused him in equal measures, always in private. It is different now. Now there is the matter of the deep-seated affections beneath that lust, the affections they did not intend to develop. They both know without speaking that their 'arrangement' can never become a public matter, not while the bounty is still high and the possibility of one being used to bait the other is of high probability. They also know, wordlessly, that each would kill for the other.

Sometimes they lie in silence, limbs entangled and slicked with sweat, breathing ragged until sleep overtakes them. Waking up in his arms seemed alien to her at first, though she grew to like it. Long puckered scratchmarks run down his back, across his thighs and chest, and he occasionally lies alone at night, sleepless, while his fingers gently trace the marks she has left him, the ridges where she has drawn blood. She would leave his room with a swelling moat of teethmarks tattooed in pink on her neck, her face, her breasts and wonders, as she stares at herself in the mirror, when it was that she gave herself so completely to him.

Their companions sometimes notice a faint hint of a scratch peeking out from his collar and would wonder, though not extensively, where he had received it. Their touches might linger a little more than intended, the glances they pass are sometimes a little too lustful, but their 'arrangement' is still reserved for those times they are completely alone. Times when they would assure their party that their return to the _Strahl_ for supplies was completely necessary, times when they would go off foraging or shopping for armour.

It was not a perfect situation to be in, but when the itch needed scratching….

A/N: Not quite the full on sapfest I was after, but what the hell.

-The artist formerly known as TioRankP/Voodoo Fyrefly


End file.
